(Way#7) HUMILITY: 48 Ways with Rabbi Aaron Dovid Poston

[Music] hey good day everybody welcome back to beyond the seven live from jerusalem with rabbi aaron david poston this is a beautiful classic with a beautiful series he's teaching us the 48 ways to wisdom uh today is part seven it's exciting to be with him uh after hanukkah i look forward to hearing what he's got to share with us today because this is a beautiful class i hope you all enjoy it so let's tune in and see how the rabbi's doing today rabbi posted so good to see you sir you are live on the air it's your show and i am thoroughly enjoying this class shalom alaikum everybody welcome thank you very much dan for having me back we had a break last week i understand we're having a break next week so hanukkah was fantastic it's really uplifting i went on tour last night with my some of my students last night thursday night and some of my students to mashaarim we really had unbelievably fantastic inspirational songs with thousands of people thousands i'm telling you walls of people anyway i'm not going to go into it right now and but we had a great time and tonight we're talking about another humility i just want to mention that i should have uh talked to you before we went alive but we did a little bit of a fundraising for we're trying to produce dorms to establish dorms for some of our students and we have an unbelievable array of different types of people people who religious their whole lives people who are in the process of converting to judaism and people who are bona fide but they know off and i'm just talking about jerusalem obviously we have students all over the world and all different levels and all different uh paths and um so we do i would appreciate if you could put in the link to the movie that we produced rabbi bridowitz it's five minutes so i'm going to put it in the link [Music] on ours i appreciate if you did the same hanukkah is definitely the time to give however it's the end of the fiscal year and it's also beneficial for those who give it's a deductible donation so what we want to do is produce a dormitory so we can help our students focus on their studies number one to take away the burden of trying to make a living and to full-time students especially very difficult maybe now more than ever but in general anybody that wants to dedicate their lives to learning it would be much easier for them if they didn't have to worry about shelter food so we intend to provide that and i think that would also help us get more full-time students as well so it's a double it's a win-win win for everyone um i just want to reiterate what we're doing here on the 48 ways to wisdom this is not just a jewish thing this is jewish wisdom and i know that a lot of no kids are wondering why why don't you have uh more no high teachers in prohibition there will be but in the meantime uh much of the wisdom is obviously coming from uh the jewish people and we're hashem we're broadcasting it all it's not just me it's not just you there's there's so much out there and we encourage uh people to to learn and of course to get involved even if you're no hype to be involved with jews with jewish people with the jewish community wherever possible whether it's in person or through the internet through the telephone lines remember what that was like a real telephone and jerry lewis telephone yeah take vacations to israel and learn we're here for you i'm sure there's many other options but we're just one of them and we're happy to serve we're happy to serve you so i just posted that link sir yeah it's in here okay so come and come to israel as soon as the skies are open and we're happy to have you and you can go through dubai you know if you can't come directly come come to another country anyway so we're in way number seven in other words humility is one of the paths in order to acquire a trait to acquire in order to acquire wisdom and i think by the end of the first 10 minutes you'll understand it and maybe the first minute but we'll see so one of the swarm one of the books we're using is rabbi north weinberg's famous uh series on the 40 ways to islam this is ancient it goes all the way back to mount sinai itself right well the 49 days that it took us from the leaving of egypt leaving bondage leaving a place of in hebrew mitzar uh constricted blocked and i can see so many words right mitzrayim is a dark place that is full of the impurities and um and we're leaving there we're going towards mount sinai towards the revelation towards the clarity right so for a jew and i'm saying for a jew but not really i'm saying for us the israelites we went through a process of these 49 days and each day one of these uh attributes were required and we're sharing it with the world this is what helped us and this is what can help you so the the seventh way is called anavah humility so the first thing we need to do is define the term and make sure we don't have any misconceptions so as brings up one of the biggest misconceptions is what would you describe you picture someone who is humble someone walks in the room you would imagine his head is down his shoulders are like this and he's probably nondescript very very meek and maybe even apologetic for walking into such a room and saying excuse me i'm sorry to bother you all you know and this is not at all what humility is okay how do we know right we take moses as the prime example the torah actually tells us that moses was the most humblest man in the entire world right if you go to numbers chapter 12 verse 3. i'll read it you want to read it in english and i'll read it in hebrew i'm just trying to post this up to get more more people coming in um you want me to read it or you want to take one second sir bookmarks i'm sorry that was deuteronomy no numbers 12 verse 3 numbers 12. verse three now this man moses was exceedingly humble more so than any person on the face of the earth okay so ha ish moshe anov he was exceedingly he was very humble me cole had from all the other people which were on the face of the earth okay now rashi tells us this means modest and patient that's what humble that's what humility is modest impatient remember he was willing what's the word he was willing to go past he was like over to um i'm not saying he's not a man of responsibility but when god chose him he's like listen i don't speak well i'm not the man maybe there's someone better than me right he's not running to um to be in the spotlight and yet we know i mean the whole torah is like really his his transmission his speech forget about the fact that god dictated him letter for letter word for word but deuteronomy is his speech so really what we're going to see through noah's words is the one who's really really humble who has acquired the trait of humility is actually someone who's going to be charismatic now that is a real twist because you don't expect that's the trait that brings one to charisma but we'll see we'll see as we go along how that is true okay now what's the opposite of humility we would call arrogance so let's first we still have to define what humility is and we'll also try to define what arrogance is but we're talking about moses who stood up to fire and said let my people go cannot be that kind of person that walks through the room with his head down and his shoulders crouched like that and saying um i'm so sorry to bother you right he's like walking in defiantly right with all his uh belief that he is going to you know make some headway here to let these slaves go right he's talking to the most powerful man of the universe at the time right of the known world egypt was a commercial center of the world probably much like either america or china is today right and you walk there to you he walks into the the king to the to the most powerful person and says let my people go so he was very charismatic in a certain way now we'll have to talk about that let's talk about again the actual definition so this safer describes humility is basically saying like this i am just but a speck of dust in relation to hashem we're not talking about human beings in relation to hashem to the almighty and all that really truly matters is that i do his will because it's right it's truthful i'm not worried about what other people think i'm not worried about what other people say about me right this is the knowing you're doing the right thing and you're willing to take a stand and confront anybody and everyone around you that's humility now we don't think of it that way but he's going to describe the idea of getting the ego out of the way right there's such a thing i'm not a psychologist okay but there's such a thing as the way we think about ourselves in front of other people is going to affect the way we behave but if we know that we have to stand up for truth and meaning he's going to get into this whole idea of true humility means a seeker for meaning and i imagine that anybody who's watching this is a real true seeker of meaning will understand that they have to go with with what's true and not what would and not with which is popular right it's very easy to be a follower very easy meaning meaningless but to take meaning and stand up for it against all odds against the what you may perceive as being the majority so you don't have to you don't care about what other people think of you you're not looking for approval for anybody you're only concerned about what is what is correct and right and therefore your own personal needs and agendas are not going to get in the way and that requires you to get rid of your ego okay we'll talk about that but the opposite we said is um is arrogance so arrogance is the opposite of humility what is that that means it's all about me it's all about my ego it's um i'm all that counts don't bother me with what's right or wrong it's all about me and my ego so what he concludes by saying that humility we see is not weakness it's not a weakness it's actually a strength and it will lead to what we call charisma because the humble person suppresses his ego and connects to something much greater than himself when see when we learn judaism we learn about judaism what judaism has to teach the world about the almighty so when we connect to this thing this entity this idea of the one who created every atom in the universe i mean this is beyond our comprehension to understand hashem but whatever we could possibly comprehend of him and if we can connect him then we are actually powerful the truth is because he created us in his image he created in his image i told you i love looking at people i love sitting on a bench and just looking at all the different creations of hashem they're standing up on two feet right they're not i'm not talking about animals i'm talking about human beings with free will and everyone has a life and everyone has relationships and it's just a mind-boggling mind-boggling to think about how it's amazing the creation of the world and how it's certainly better than any tv movie sports uh event just to watch people i just love watching people there's just like this you see the godliness you see god in human beings so basically the next idea is if you you know that meaning is the ultimate goal to try to find me because everyone wants it everyone wants meaning in their life can you imagine living without meaning it's it's it's death so he says the humility will enable us to move beyond our self-centeredness and all those petty concerns because you know that real true meaning is beyond that petty stuff and they free your your life has meaning you have a higher purpose example he gives and he talked to a lot of college students so here's a a dialogue a made-up scenario but you know what it's true right you ask a college kid why are you going to college well what is he going to say either i have to get a job or i have to get a degree let's say he says i have to get a degree so you say what are you talking about um why do you need a degree you ask him so he says obviously to get a job so what do you need a job for you asking says well i need to make money why do you need to make money so i can go buy food why do you need food obviously i need to eat why do you eat why do you have any people i have to live so what are you looking for i'm living to go to college it's like a full circle for nothing it's all meaningless right so you have to ask yourself what am i living for what am i really living for what's the purpose of life because if it's just to go in a circle like i don't know they call these a rat race right i guess hamster wheel yeah he's just going around in circles and that's what most people are doing now this is a very important thing i i never heard anybody else speak like this but nach weinberg zachary would speak like this he says what are you willing to use these words but i want to shock anybody what are you willing to die for what does it mean why are you asking me such a question what am i willing to die for what he really wants to know at the end of the conversation is what i'm willing to live for okay now if you're not willing to die for anything that means you're what your life is basically meaningless now what does it mean i'm willing to die for my children i'm willing to die for a cause i'm willing to die for my country i'm going to die for something that's meaningful okay so at the end of the conversation when you pinpoint what you are willing to die for meaning what's really important to you what's what's really important to you that you're willing to give up your life for so then he would pose the most important question and that is if you're willing to die for it don't you think that it's important to live for it so like many jews they come to israel and say i want to fight in the army i want to defend the jewish state but they're not living a jewish lifestyle so he would really pin them in this in this conversation okay so you're willing to die for the jewish people but are you willing to live for the jewish people are you willing to do what's right what's what's what god wants from you because that's right keeping the torah doing the mitzvahs right sitting and studying whatever about 15 minutes an hour three five hours a day whatever it is doing mitzvahs getting up and going to synagogue in the morning of putting these straps and these boxes on your on your body sitting on pesach even eating matzah right you're willing to die for the jewish people does it make any sense that you're not willing to live for the jewish people you're not willing to take those values that you think are so important and incorporate them into your life so then maybe you're not really willing to die for the jewish people and the truth is every convert anybody who ends up converting i tell them it's not about okay i know that i know the torah is true well if you know that you can be a noah i mean that's really what a righteous noah height is he he doesn't have to keep the 613 but he knows it's true and he has to keep the seven and he can go beyond as this title is called beyond the seven he can incorporate a few more uh torah values and torah concepts and torments into his life that's optional but the main thing is that you you know it's you know you know what the truth is and you're willing to to live by it um i kind of got sidetracked now where am i going with this one second i was talking about okay so you take a whether it's a ben north or a jew right what are you willing to die for then you should be willing to live for it i'll just use his words don't die for it live for it this is the command right you with the clarity of knowing what's important is we're getting rid of the ego getting rid of all these the subjective stuff the petty stuff and knowing what's most important thing and and taking that on okay now the next idea is again trying to be objective living with humility means striving for objectivity and that's going to be that's going to lead us into this next idea let me just make sure i'm going to page here all wrong okay here we go so the last thing we said right so trying to be objective and not subjective this is if you're really humble you'll be able to say my ideas are small i can build on them i can examine them but i have to be i have to get rid of my ego so in in the jewish um tradition in the jewish bate midrash you'll have two people sitting and learning with each other and they're actually battling each other like two pieces of metal sharping sharpening each other becomes sharp to become as close to the the one truth as possible because that's what happens when you sharpen if the blade comes to a point in fact the word echad which is one the word for sharpness is just it's part of the word because it comes to a point becomes one so this is one of the ideas of uh when you're sitting with you're sitting with your study partner it's so difficult but it's it's how we learn to get your ego out of the way you hear the proof from the other person and now you have to either accept it or you have to battle it right what can you come to counter that argument and the two of you are sitting there because you basically want to come to the truth so when you start out it's like i'm using the word like your enemies and in the end you are lovers you and your partner your study partner are battling it out for the truth and you hopefully walk away with a little bit more clarity and that's what life is about it's a battle it's it's not easy right to ba again what is your ego what is your it's really in judaism it's the yeats of herat the evil inclination okay you have to find a balance obviously people need some right a certain measure of ego there's no question about it but when you're living your life all based on your ego and your subjectivity you're never going to come to this clarity so this is a prerequisite for wisdom how else are you going to acquire wisdom so with this last paragraph i'll read then we'll go into some of the sources so the talmud starts by explaining the the why is it a prerequisite torah is compared to water what is the nature of water it goes down down down to the lowest possible place but maybe it's because it it works on gravity right that the water is um it's heavier than air so it goes down obviously it was sitting on uh i'm just trying to think on mercury so then it would float but basically it's it's low it's heavier than air so of course it goes down down down um there's a pussac there's a verse we're going to read in isaiah chapter 55 verse 1. the torah is compared to water the prophet says behold all who are thirsty go to the water right and drink this teaches us that just as water does not collect on an incline but rather it flows down and it collects in the lowest place so too as we said and i'll read the verse now just so we about arrogance so in deuteronomy chapter 8 verse 14 and your heart grows haughty this is after the verse that says you're going to acquire so much materialism you're going to be very successful your heart will grow hardy and you'll forget the lord your god who has brought you out of the land of egypt out of the house of bondage so this is arrogance when you acquire so much and you feel that it's you that did it so that's the opposite which verse was that in deuteronomy 8 sir 8 verse 14 14. your heart will become hardy and also we know and we'll see in perfect vote and which perkier vote is it it is right page well there's two of them really but uh where's the first one it's chapter one verse four and perfect one verse uh not square sorry uh chapter one mishna four and chapter one mishna six well we'll read them shortly uh maybe we'll read them now just to cover them if you want to read them or do you want me to read them i've got it up um what what uh with chapter first the first chapter the fourth mishnah mr four oh i mean chapter two forgive me chapter one come on bring it up i got so many tabs up um the way mine reads it says uh yasi ben yozer okay and yasi bin yokan of jerusalem uh received the transmission from them uh and yossi ben yozer used to say let your house be a meeting place for the sages cleave to the dust of their feet and drink thirstily their words so there is a you know their words are like water obviously if it says drink thirstily there's some liquid right that again it's the water but i wonder focused on the dust yourself in the soil of their feet so in hebrew it's him it could be translated as make yourself as dust at their feet interesting right in other words either way whether you're looking at the idea of the liquid the water going into you because that the torah itself is like is like water like into water or you're looking at is just humility as make yourself as dust at their feet right here the translation is dust yourself in the soil of their feet either way it's it's a beautiful idea about humility okay now just to sum up this one idea about attaining wisdom of torah requires unadulterated search for the truth right your ego blocks the light of torah we discussed the idea of the sun the sun is the name for the satan it's spelled and then allah is a blind person the the goal of this satan is to blind you from god right or let's say here it's your ego that's blocking the light of torah because the word torah is light and we just got done hanukkah how many times have you heard this already right that the torah in fact in arabic do you write ta right and he roots torah right instruction and light guidance and another idea we're going to discuss is why was the torah given in the desert right it could have been given in jerusalem we could have left egypt come right to israel it could have been given in a city could have been given in a civil civilized area but no it was transmitted to us while we were in the mid bar we're going to discuss this idea obviously it's quite simple but there's nothing that's growing there there's no distractions there there's certainly no wealth you're going to accumulate or find over there um it's it's barren and empty okay and also why was the torah why did god reveal himself to moshe in what we call the bush the burning bush which is you know you compared to it could have been the cedar tree could have been the palm tree could have been some you know uh far-reaching powerful maple tree oak whatever it is right redwood of california something but no it was the bush and why mount sinai mount sinai we're told is the lowest of the mountains i don't know uh what they say today may or may not be the real mount sinai but we we have a tradition that we don't know where it is and we were not told to know where it is and we're we're not even supposed to seek it out it means nothing the holiness i know this sounds very strange right oh very good question i'm sorry i didn't mean to no it's a good question it's a good question um just like moses is burial place we don't know we shouldn't make it into god forbid a uh some kind of a sanctuary where people go and maybe even end up worshiping a tomb of sorts so too yes there was holiness there but i'm of the belief that we were actually transported it actually met mariah is a name for harbaugh the mount of um the temple mount it's also one of the many names to mount mariah was also mount of mount sinai that we weren't even really there we were actually i don't know how you say it the transported like beam me up scotty parenthetically somewhere else but it wasn't necessary to make the place holy the holiness was there at the moment and once we were gone and the the presence of hashem was gone there's no holiness to the place so there's no real need to go and seek it out um and that's our tradition okay that's the jewish tradition that the mount itself today has no holiness yes then it did right we were told not to uh graze our animals at the base we couldn't um uh physically use the place because it had caducen holiness but it was a temporary thing and also it was outside of the land of israel okay now let's go to the sources which i think hopefully you'll find absolutely fascinating so let me go through pages and make sure okay so the very first thing we did discuss and i just want to reiterate it and speak about it again and that was moses who is the most humblest of all is the greatest rabbi we call him moshe rabbenu right the hebrew moses our teacher rabbenu our teacher and he was you know charismatic for someone who couldn't speak and says you know you got the wrong guy but then of course took the mantle and the staff and was very powerful powerful speaker to go in front of pharaoh as we mentioned in the beginning and to um to lead the people command the people and the people followed him of course you had the the elders i mean it was it was um it was a strategy it was mechanized it wasn't that he was talking all the time to three million people right he spoke to aaron and aaron's sons and the elders and joshua and whatnot there was a whole system of how he got the message across but that is a very um i should say a good beginning to talk about this idea i want to go now to that statement we saw in isaiah just to get this idea the whole verse isaiah isaiah yeah it was isaiah which chapter again i'm just putting my pages back in order oh did you say 55 i'm trying to remember 55 won all who thirst go to water yes so all the thirst go to water and whoever has no money go buy and eat and go buy without money and without a price wine and milk right so first of all whining milk meaning teaching the teaching is better than wine and milk the torah itself is better now why how do we know that the torah is water so i want to go to two verses the the gamora and tinus 7a discusses this idea um i'll just tell you the verses and we'll compare the two in deuteronomy chapter 32 2. you want me to head to there yeah deuteronomy 30 oop about 31 next chapter 32 2 says my lessons will drip like rain my word will flow like dew like storm winds on vegetation and like raindrops on grass okay so what does it mean my doctrine right you can understand it because i'm telling you it means the torah but it for sure means the torah and i'll tell you why because you go later later on in proverbs 4 2. but look at the hebrew first in the deuteronomy 32 2 where it says [Music] um what's the word and ya roof is going to drop kamatar like rain likhi my doctrine how do we translate my doctrine what is so now go to proverbs 4 2 and you'll see again proverbs 4. 2 says for i gave you good teaching forsake not my instruction okay now in in hebrew it's torah okay that's the same thing that's the same word we saw for doctrine here is my purchase my my doctrine what i have given you my purchase what i've given you is good i gave to you my torah do not abandon it you have to know the hebrew p these noches who are watching should not be afraid to learn lush in hakodesh okay lush and hakodesh god spoke and the world came into being god spoke to the jews at mount sinai through moses in hebrew right in lashana kodesh and um you want to you know if you were in man-made doctrines like the church or whatever it's all made up you know anybody can say whatever they want we want to go back to the original language which god looked into the world and created he looked into the torah and created the world right you want to know truth wanting to wisdom you have to start with learning something learning some al alphabet learning the letters learning a few words right yes struggling breaking your teeth right i knew growing up in america we thought why do i have to learn another language let the whole world learn english right it becomes even very lazy it's a very lazy attitude that's fine because you know what if as long as i was not yet a religious jew that's how i thought and then i started to become more observant and i'm praying in hebrew and i'm trying to learn in hebrew it's uh you're up against the wall like a mental block it's a block of laziness by saying originally wha i i drilled it into my head for all those earlier years of my life why would i ever need to learn another language the whole world's going to speak english but guess what boca tovas they say good morning you have to learn hebrew this is the most important language this is where the the whole language is so full of wisdom and if you've been watching any of at least my classes i'm sure the other classes you'll realize the depth the the unbelievable amount of knowledge the richness of just a one word one word i'll give you an example the word for marriage is what does it mean it means to lift up how are you going to be how are you going to raise yourself let alone someone else it's only through marriage you can only become a really fulfilled person by finding that partner of i'm going to say it of the very opposite sex from you right who is just let's say opposite right and she or he will the partner will have your the weakness the strength that you don't have and you have the strengths they don't have and together you'll be able to assist each other in life right in in parenting in in business in keeping a home whatever it and your own personality will change right we all have i'm not afraid to say this right i have a feminine side but there's no way i'm in touch with it until i meet my my wife now i'm in touch with my feminine side you follow i mean i have to activate that feminine flight but i'm not going to activate it in a in a correct way i'm not going to be able to harness it properly unless i'm married right and i think the other way around is also true a woman also has a masculine side and hopefully through marriage she'll be able to also harness and direct that side into its um higher fulfillment basically okay back so so the word nasoi means to carrier to lift up so i think that's why they have um well at least the way i grew up i don't know if this isn't true about anywhere in the world but uh apparently on your wedding night you pick up your wife and you carry across the threshold right that was like an old tradition so i don't know not everyone's able to do it but let's say themed something theoretically that's what you do it's like it's like because that's what you're doing that's what marriage is lifting a person up right carrying their pain carrying their you know you're sharing a responsibility you're shouldering together going through life and it's the most amazing things this is my promotion for marriage okay but it's just same word to carry a load to carry a load and the carrying alone is not always a burden right it's listen you come home from a i don't know you go into an electronic store and you bought the the newest fanciest whatever it is right you're very proud i don't know if you have a truck you can't dolly to put it on but whatever it is you walk into that store with a big smile on your face right you're carrying something right carrying something's not always a burden right anyways you see the word lekka is the torah is god's purchase and therefore it's gift so we see that just as it's compared in deuteronomy 32 2 to water terrain to do we see it over here the same word is used specifically for tar i want to give over another thing i spoke about many times people don't understand what the nach part is of the tanakh so the tea the tanakh the the t is the torah that is god's word directly unfiltered straight through moses to us the knock part is a little bit filtered right it's through a prophet again i want to just say i'm not saying that the five books isn't the five books of moses not prophecy what i'm actually saying it's beyond prophecy it's directly right whereas biopsy is the the other the other two books that say it's part of what we call the ural torah right for anybody that says oh i don't buy into this oral torah business well guess what where do you have joshua until the end of i don't know where yours ends up but we went on chronicles right you go through the whole prophets and then you hit the writings this is an explanation it's a rabbinic explanation and when i say that because it was the rabbis of the same right the men of the great assembly in onward the saint hedron who chose which books were in and which books were not authoritative right it's all rabbinic okay what we have today we think the rabbis that they kept it intact right and when the prophet prophesied it wasn't dictated and written down right away he usually was in a dream state where he was sleeping entirely right he was in a uh he fell to the ground and was unconscious and when he woke up then he said what he remembered what he saw what he experienced okay so it's not direct as the five books are and it's an explanation the the prophets came to rebuke the people for what they should have known and or should have been practicing from the original instructions okay so you don't have anything new there's nothing new in the knock part it's only a i don't know it's not it's a review it's it's a right it's a in hebrew it's a remembrance of what you're supposed to be doing okay so we have this idea i think it's very simple we talk about water is what goes down to the lowest place so humility is you understand why it should be a prerequisite for wisdom you want to have it but how do you acquire it that's going to be so let's go back let's go now to numbers chapter 21. it's really verses 18 and 19. um it's really the last few words of 18. but i want to put them together for a reason so if you read this is from bilum giving the jewish people praise so to speak so chapter 21 chapter 21 verse 18 and 19 yeah 18 says a well a well dug by princes carved out by nobles of the people through the law giver with their staffs and from the desert a gift from the gift to the streams in 19 and from the streams to the heights when he says okay yeah so just try to use your imagination here billam is talking about the jewish people you know we're talking about the the prince's will again water dug by the princes the torah itself being worked at carved out by the nobles through the law giver with their staffs and what does he say and from the desert a gift now in hebrew it says umidbar the word midbar means the desert so umidbar and from the desert a gift it's only from making yourself into a desert that you will be granted this gift of wisdom of torah you'll be able to acquire what is the desert the desert is a barren place no distractions right we're talking about distractions of worldly stuff right the ego nothing there right like pure emptiness where you no um subjectivity it's like there's no ego there it's totally gone i think that's a beautiful idea and that therefore becomes a gift you just use the rest from the gift to the streams and from the streams to the heights goes down down down and all you know how water works right i'm not a scientist follows the i know the clouds come and the rain comes but eventually after the streams go out to the sea and there's a thing called evaporation eventually the water goes back up okay and that's the way the world works okay beautiful and there's a great idea about okay they asked the rabbis who do you learn the most from your teachers your colleagues colleagues meaning people on your level or your students and they answered we learned the most from our students how can that be what is that all about i talked about this before maybe on a practical level you know when you prepare class so you have to prepare in order to know it and you know the kind of questions your students going to ask you so you're even more prepared and when you don't have the answers you have to go back and study more so at a certain level maybe that's just a very practical idea of why you learn most from your students but also i think the questions that are asked um i think it's a greater idea greater i'm not saying that whatever wisdom they have to impart on you is not worth anything i'm not saying that perhaps yes but look at psalms 119 verse 99. psalms 119. verse 99. that's the biggest yeah way down there 99 says from all my teachers i gained understanding for your testimonies are my conversation okay so in hebrew it says me call milam dai from all my teachers who are all your teachers how many teachers can you have so we know who's a wise person procliva says one who learns from everyone everyone is your teacher now that takes a certain amount of humility i understand i'm sure there's some professors out there they look at uh you know everybody is lowly like i spent x amount of time learning and um i know it all i'm sure there are professors like that i'm sure there are i stay far away from these guys but anyway let's make the soup yeah yeah so here in the king david from all my teachers he's talking about everybody as we know a wise person learns from everybody has the humility in perch 1-6 now we did one four before now we're doing chapter one mishna-6 uh that was uh yahushua ben prakaya and the tai uh of arbel uh received the transmission from them the rabbis submission for yoshimin okay they said uh make for yourself a rabbi acquire for yourself a friend and judge every person favorably okay so i have the english says assume for yourself a master so in hebrew it says oh you said make create somebody to be your teacher what do you mean what does it mean your master's talk about a teacher really again if you're told to do this you have to have a certain amount of humility this is basically i'm going to call it a command i mean commanding you to be humble to find somebody to learn from to become your i'm not going to use the word guru i don't know master but i like the word rob is your is your rabbi he's your teacher is your someone who's going to if that's his job to give it over but it's your job to accept it to receive it so you have to work hard it's always make it do it something that requires something on your part to do and i think the only way you're going to be able to do that is if you know you ain't god's gift to the world right that you have all the knowledge but you want to acquire from somebody then you will seek out somebody that you could to do that with okay now i want to go into this idea and this is crazy crazy crazy crazy idea okay let's assume that we make ourselves humble does god then lift us up as we know there's a verse that says god raises the lowly or does it mean that if we're so lowly god will come down and descend to our level it's not it's an argument it's an argument in the gemara both sides are true okay so we want to just try to understand them a little bit deeper so this is a gemura sota 5a there's a verse 57 15 in isaiah 53 15. yeah i've got to scroll all the way back up these 99 verses yeah uh prophets isaiah isaiah you said 55 again it's 57 15. forgive me rabbi i hope the students realize i don't get these lesson notes beforehand 57 17 yeah verse 15 verse 15 for so said the high and exalted one who dwells to eternity and his name is holy with the lofty and the holy ones i dwell and with the crushed and humble in spirit to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the crust okay remember we're talking about humility being one of the ways to acquire wisdom meaning to have an intimate relationship with hashem and somehow be infused with holy thoughts and objective truths right so we're talking about unbelievable how great hashem is he inhibits he inhabits eternity his name is holy keeps in mind something about him in his name and he dwells in a very high and holy place but also with him that is of the contrite and humble spirit again my question is if you're humble and contrite will hashem then bring you up to dwell with him or does it mean that he'll come down and dwell with you in your low place let's leave it as a question but there is going to be an intimate relationship if you have this humility whether you go up to him his level whether he comes down to your level it's clear something is happening in this verse so the gomorrah now discusses two ideas one says when it says together with me is the person who is contrite and humble what does that mean one says that it means that i god descend and have found with the person who is contrite and humble that god goes down the other one says no the holy one blessed be one second raises them up yeah either or once just go back to the beginning okay together with me is the person who's contrite and humble okay in other words that god elevates the humble that's one opinion the other one says no i go down okay so now we have to discuss the two ideas here it stands to reason that the meaning of the verse is more like the one who says that i'm with the contrite person as the holy one blessed be he disregarded all the mountains and hills and rested his divine presence on the lowly mount sinai he didn't raise mount sinai up mount sinai was the lowest of mountains so it sounds like he comes down god chose to give the torah on mount sinai as a symbol of his own humility because it lacked height and therefore he lowered his divine presence as it were to the mountain okay raviosa says a person should always learn proper behavior from the wisdom of his creator so in other words i think this is something i i don't like to mock the christians but one of the things i heard is they don't you know we say we imitate god right there's verses and some verses that explain how we're supposed to imitate god one of the things that the preach and the church wants to avoid don't imitate jesus don't imitate him i'm serious in in yeah there's certain attributes maybe but do you realize that if you would imitate him you'd end up being an orthodox jew right so they say there's a limit you know oh they have a whole movement say what would jesus do and um yeah they say that in words alone what would jesus do yeah they're belly guiding i know exactly because if you really followed what jesus did you would eat kosher you would keep shabbos you is right you and all the six thirteen commandments and we know that they don't so the whole thing is just uh we call the boba miser it's uh anyway it's just hot air um okay let's come back into this idea this is what the torah is telling us a person should always learn proper behavior from the wisdom of hashem who disregarded all the mountains and hills and he put his holy presence on that low place called mount sinai and also as i mentioned before he appeared in the bush as opposed to a very large or what do you call it um powerful tree correct okay also we learned from a king the laws of a king right an earthly king has to carry he has to carry a tour with him at all times he used to write for himself it's one of the six thirteen commandments we all have to write for ourselves a torah but he's take one with him a second one is to have one in the in the chambers and one that he carries why would someone like that have to carry a torah to show his humility that he's also under the law right and i know like in america you have a big debate uh there seems to be like two laws right one for the clintons i mean sorry one for the um you know what i mean for what they call the elite and the um the privileged and then god forbid right uh a different law for the for the commoners yeah second-class citizens no and this is where i want to end off it's going to be absolutely i think this is absolutely fascinating if you waited until now to hear this it's going to blow you away and as i mentioned how important it is to learn hebrew this is a gemura magilla 31a it says wherever you find any reference in the bible to the might of god god is mighty you find immediately after it a verse how he goes down to the humble okay i'm going to give you three verses one from the torah one from the prophets and one from the writings but i'm going to end off with the gematria i know you guys love gamaches so let's start off every verse the verse following it or the second part of the verse the first verse is the first part part of the verse is going to talk about how god's so mighty and the second part is going to refer to his his involvement with the lowly so go to deuteronomy chapter 10 verse 17 and then 18. so this is in the torah itself chapter 10 verse 17 talks about god's might and 18 we'll talk about his going down to the lowly let's hear it deuteronomy 10 verse 8 it's 17 and then 18 chapter 10 17 says for the lord your god is god of god's and the lord of lords the great mighty and awesome god who will sure great god is great okay who will show no favor nor will he take a bribe 18 says he executes the judgment of the orphan and widow and he loves the stranger to give him bread and clothing so this displays his humility in taking care of even the weakest parts of society correct first verse 18 17 is oh my god like beyond beyond anything you can imagine and yet he's involved with the lowest part of society now we'll go to isaiah chapter 15 i'm sorry isaiah 57 15 but then we're also going to read the latter part of 15. so it's chapter 57 isaiah the whole of 15. but like somewhere in the middle you'll have to take a break but let's see all right he says for so said the high and exalted one who dwells to eternity and his name is holy with a lofty and holy one so yeah that's the first part we read this verse earlier but we're breaking it into two so in other words every place you find god's highness or that's a word you know this exaltedness then you find what now read the rest of the verse with the lofty and holy ones i dwell and with the crushed and humble in spirit to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the crushed same theme same thing the high almighty exalted is at nevertheless down below in the in this world trying to help the people in most need now we're going to go to psalms 68 now we're going to read verse 5 and then we're going to read verse 6. so we read already from the torah we read from the prophets now we're going to read from the writings psalm 68 5 take a break and then 6. let's hear what it says 68 verse 5 says sing to god sing praises to his name praise him who rides in aravath by his name yah and rejoice before him okay so i'll just read them i have a different translator extol him who rides upon the clouds whose name is the lure okay it's very important about the name of the lord is actually in all of these ideas okay who the isaiah said whose name is sacred and the other one in the deuteronomy talk about god of the god the lord of the lords okay let's read now the end 28 verse 6 o father of orphans and judge of widows oh god in his holy dwelling place so you're talking about a father of the fatherless he actually will take on right the orphans and the widows right a judge of the widows meaning he'll come to their defense okay now we get into the interesting part where it says remember we started wherever you find god's greatness that's where you find his humility we are created in the image of god we are supposed to follow his uh path his footsteps his uh character traits okay he created the hebrew language he looked into what we call the torah which is written in latin a kodesh in the hebrew language and he spoke it so to speak because we don't know what that means he doesn't have lips he doesn't have breath whatever that means he's beyond that but yet the torah is written in the language of man for us to understand what our role and job is in this world we speak we speak words every word is a combination of letters every letter has a gamatra now we're going to talk about a different kind of gamachu that most people probably never heard of but you have every letter is like aleph is one bet is two gimmel is three i don't have to go through the whole thing i'm not even speaking about that type of gamachia what i'm going to show you is a different type of gamache it's called in its fullness so for example i don't know if you can see it yep um you're left so aleph aleph is aleph lamin pay so aleph is one lamin is 30 pay is 80. so it's a hundred and eleven that is you're tough so it's 412 because tough is 400 yid is 10 and bet is 12. okay at 2 sorry so you're 412. every letter now every letter every letter has a full gamatra because it's spelled with other letters in other words molecules and atoms right going deep down into into the called quantum physics okay each word is made of letters each letter is made of other letters so you have god's holy name you'd in the hain of love and hay now when you have this whole chart and i'll show you again it's the yud hay and vove which are the smallest and i say significantly small because if you add up you would hey love and hay right which means you add the hay which is only six so if you take six times two that's 12 right you have above which is 22 and you have the ud which is 20. so all together it's 54. four letters four letters add up to 22 altogether 54. according to this chart no other letter forget word comes even close the gimbal is 73 gimmo moment and mim that's 70 and gimbals 3. so and a lot the word lamin is 74. the word man is 480 the name that god created for himself for us to speak is the smallest of value he created him for himself so where his own name where you find his greatness which is in his name you'll find his humility so we saw these verses the torah the navy and the kasuvian wherever you see his exaltedness you find his involvement we are supposed to follow hashem this is like just another lesson another proof right it's nice to bring another proof this is how we're supposed to be we have to get rid of our ego we have to get rid of our hauntings we have to understand that humility is such an important trait that if we want to get wisdom how why shouldn't we try to apply find people to learn from know that we know nothing know that we have whatever we think we know it's usually subjective and um what's the word i'm looking for um full of ego there's so much pride it's just it's it's not only distracting it's leading us down the wrong path you want the path of truth then come to the torah the word ms annette is with an aleph a man and a tough it's the first middle and end it's a perfect balance shack air is all three letters at the end it's it's tilted everything i don't i don't have to tell you come and learn torah and if you come to jerusalem come to um and you know what can i tell you we're also available online so if you can't make it write us email us watch our videos watch all the videos on in the no high world center and uh so i can tell you just keep trying to it's work it's work it's work it's not easy but it's your life mission and if you get married it'll help you learn humility i tell you that [Music] yeah 100 rabbi i got to say this is just one awesome class today and you know i was planning to go to israel and i put it off and then the cove had hit you know and i i feel like ah did i miss a window or what and i'm just praying that things open up and i would love to come and visit myself and if i do get to get there to jerusalem you know i'm going to be checking looking you up for sure so hashem willing hashem willing you know but next week rabbi i am off next week uh on on call on emergency call in my community here and um so i cannot do a broadcast next week are you okay with that sir are you okay for another couple weeks to me it's your class uh you're doing a wonderful job uh teaching us this the 48 ways to wisdom it means a lot to me i can only encourage the noahides out there to just embrace this re-read this share this out there look at what he just brought out in the end you can't go wrong it's the profound truth of what torah is there for and i thought you really hit it home today i want to thank you personally and i look forward to uh the next one live from jerusalem with rabbi aaron david poston so it's probably going to be two weeks so are you okay with that rabbi all right two weeks from now folks we'll catch you then have a wonderful wonderful evening [Music] is